


Amor Est Qui Ignocit

by anhthr



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, M/M, Not Beta Read, Post-Episode: s012e12 Tome-Wan, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Tension, Violence as a Communication Language, cannibals in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:53:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28660536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anhthr/pseuds/anhthr
Summary: "I find it curious that in all your musings, you never asked if Achilles could survive separation. Can we survive?" Will rasps, his breathing coming down hot as he leans further down, trailing a sharp caress of air against the bareness of Hannibal's throat."I don't know.""Don't. Don't lie to me, Hannibal.""Truly, Will. I do not know."In which Will broaches the subject of Hannibal’s rendition of “Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus”, and they both try to find a path to forgiveness the only way they know.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	Amor Est Qui Ignocit

**Author's Note:**

> "amor est qui ignoscit" means "it is love that forgives"
> 
> I wrote this because I'm a sucker for Greek mythology and all their lores, and really wanted to explore the comparisons to Will and Hannibal's relationship as well. I hope you all like it!

Will rakes his hands through his unruly hair as he makes his way past the driveway of Hannibal’s home, making an abysmal last effort to look a little bit more presentable and less... _unhinged_. These days, as the plan with Jack begins coming to a head, he finds himself at the end of each day in a reckless spiral, unsure whether once the momentum finally comes to a stop and he topples, he will find himself in the steady, deadly hands of Hannibal, or if he would somehow crawl towards what was remaining of his unmirrored morality, to do the right thing by Jack. 

He wonders briefly when exactly he had deemed his sense of preservation secondary enough to allow erosion, much so that he couldn’t help but be simultaneously pulled in and dragged out of Hannibal’s orbit. Will sighs at the thought, and drags his cold palms down his face, chancing a peek at the faint reflection of himself on the window across from the door, before giving a rasping knock. In a small penance of predictability, Hannibal wastes no time in getting to him.

He opens the door wide, with little surprise to find Will unannounced in the receding hours of the evening. 

“Hello, Will.” He says simply, and he pushes the door further and steps aside to let him in.

Will looks up at him for a moment, then simply nods and walks briskly into the room.

He feels...agitated, unwound, or something akin to it. He has not been able to quite find the right word for the feeling that has kept him so restless that when he finally tried to settle in with the dogs tonight, it ultimately dragged him by his hair into this room with Hannibal. He could feel Hannibal’s gaze, that look that stilled everything around him. He could sense it on his skin as Hannibal assesses the emotions in the room, as he wafts it in like a new curious scent- catalogues _him_ , and he could practically see his conclusion stretch the room wider, _too wide_ ; the rare physical manifestation of whatever his revelations are taking minute space and then relaxing back into shape, as his light footsteps finally resume.

Will moves around his desk to settle with standing by the fireplace behind Hannibal’s seat.

Hannibal approaches his desk, maintaining patience to wait for him to speak. Will turns to watch as the cast light of the fire dances against the hard angles of Hannibal’s face, while the older man regards him calmly in turn. Hannibal’s lips move slightly with soft amusement and he breaks his gaze, though not from discomfort, it was never discomfort with him. It feels like a leading dance, where Will finds himself the blinded beginner drawn to follow, so he does. His focus locks on the large steady hands as they move in a mockery of nervousness that Will feels only he can detect for what it is, hovering above to settle on the drawing papers on the desk. 

Then Hannibal sits. 

Will’s gaze falters from his therapist to the drawing resting above the others shuffled on his desk. It is the same one from a few days ago, on the lamentations of Achilles. It takes little imagination to wonder about the lingering metaphors, as little as it had taken him the last time he saw the drawing. Somehow the implications buzz through his skin, from the pad of his fingers to prickle at his toes. He forces the feeling down as quickly as it takes him.

What exactly did he come here for? 

Would Hannibal ask? 

He did not know, he thinks in answer to his own questions. He tries to ball his hands into a fist to steel himself to speak and finds his fingernails already digging into his flesh, breaking skin. Something did have to give already, after all. If Hannibal notices the coppery scent tinging the room, he makes no indication of it.

“Do you intend to finish this drawing before we leave?” Will asks simply, his voice rough around the edges from disuse, as he lets all the other underlying questions hang loosely like unhinged chandeliers above them.

Hannibal tilts his head to the side to look up at him from his seat, curious and almost bird-like. “Yes, I am afraid that I'll have to bring this to a suitable level of finality.” He pauses thoughtfully. 

“Though I will miss the solace I have found with this piece, particularly in the ease with which the similarities pull me in to create and ponder. I have always had a curious affinity for the Iliad, especially in the recent years. And contrary to what some see, what I find to be most compelling and to me, rather obviously simple, is the view that it is not truly Achilles’s flaws that catalyses his fall, but his instinct, unhinged from his most favored person, serving him up for ruin.” 

Will parts his lips but shows no intention to speak. He holds Hannibal’s gaze when kinetic amber eyes find him again, in quiet indication to continue.

“Do you think that if Achilles were told that he would find such an all-absorbing friendship, only to be betrayed by Patroclus’s death, that he would still choose his instinct to taste glory and imminent destruction?”

Will licks his lips in quiet thought and turns away from Hannibal’s ever observant gaze for a moment. He could not miss the scrutiny of the older man’s eyes, still fixated on his face, watching him to gain his answers to more multi-layered metaphors wrapped around a translucent shell of contemplation. His eyes glaze by the light of the fireplace and Hannibal’s settle on them, admiring. He turns back to speak, his focus cushioned somewhere between Hannibal’s deft fingers and the pencil placed by the illustrated piece.

"I think...I think curiosity is a damnable thing. The only way he can have something to lose is to follow the leading trail of his undoing. And if he knows that his beloved has his fate sealed in death, then why not bring it to pass with his loving hands?” Will says, looking up to Hannibal just in time to see a subtle emotion ghost over his neutral expression. 

Will feels the urge to chase it, to find its genesis and make it stay with his hands clasped tight against the man’s hard cheekbones. He wants to hold the manifestation of the pride for him that Hannibal lets show in rarities when he says something that aligns with the monster beneath the veil, to freeze it in time and bask in the uncontrollable way that it entices and frightens him, over and over. 

Hannibal turns his seat to face him, crossing a lithe leg over the other and relaxing his palms down on his lifted thigh. The older man gives a polite smile.

“You believe that the best way for him to free himself from his fate would be to destroy the presumed catalyst of his journey downwards?” 

“I think it is the only way to burn out the anger, the rage of having someone else take what is his. By his own hands, Achilles will forgive the betrayal of Patroclus's inevitable death. And with a different resolve to fuel his becoming, his armor just might have less give." Will says.

"If I were in Achilles's shoes, this would be my design." He declares with conviction, and Hannibal watches the thought process into completion in Will’s blue eyes, and thinks to himself, _what a marvel to behold_.

“A brilliant perspective, Will. It is an angle that I’ll admit to have given a lot of thought. But I do wonder, if fate makes the call, with not just the means and the end, but with the people who come into one's life to give the ends new beginnings and vice versa, would it really matter how one plays their hand? Will the outcome not be the same if the end has been already written in the actions of Achilles’s beloved? I wonder if he could truly escape it, even knowing what he does. If there is an exact point in which he can cheat fate, how will he know if it is close until he is past it?” He steeples his hands, straightening his posture as he turns the rest of his thoughts over carefully.

“I... ruminate over these questions, most times finding less clarity on the other end. I fear that it is a scenario that if I found myself in, would give me a long pause. And we know that procrastination is a killer of timely decisions, life altering ones especially.”

At this, Will breaks his gaze away from him. _Of course_ , he thinks to himself, of course Hannibal considered killing him. Having Hannibal practically admit this, in his own sapid way was not surprising. They had been there, _he_ had been there. So he knows that the thoughts are more recent in development, if it ever ended. A lot had changed after all. And Hannibal was not one for needless redundancy.

Saying that it gave him _a long pause_ , however, was surprising enough to make him look away. It gives Will the flourishing essence of an admission of vulnerability, and if there was anything Will knows about him, it’s that Hannibal did not do vulnerability. 

He suddenly gets the feeling that he must be missing something.

Hannibal snaps him out of his searching thoughts with a soft call of his name, and he turns back to him, shutting his slightly parted lips and pulling himself back into focus. 

Hannibal simply gives a toothed smile that Will’s mind can only supply as fond, for it reaches the man’s eyes where most usually die on the end curves of his lips, as he stands up to reach into his top drawer and grab a pristine wine bottle. Will's attention flicks to the man as he works the bottle open, his eyes following the action, trailing down to Hannibal's upper arms. He acclimates himself once again to understanding the latent, brutal strength that lies buzzing just underneath Hannibal’s well tailored clothes. He wonders fleetingly if admiring and observing could be convinced to amount to the same thing. 

Hannibal’s voice pulls him back into the room again. 

He feels so scattered today, and he is aware that he should know better than to serve himself up in this state in Hannibal’s office; torn from his focus and at the mercy of the unconvergence of his own thoughts.

Hannibal is walking towards him, two glasses with a serving of red wine in each hand. Will notices that his sleeves are now rolled up. Seeing Hannibal allow himself any level of comfort around him always seems to always have the effect of comforting him in turn, despite all that he knows, but right now the sight raises the hairs on his neck. In an instant, he shifts into complete alertness.

“Château Lafite Rothschild 1996, a Bordeaux wine with subtle aromas of black and red currant. Deceptively rich on the palate, but it should bring itself to a fresh, soft finish.” Hannibal says as he reaches Will, standing close by the side of him. Will can feel his own breath shutter at the sudden intimacy, the heat radiating against his shoulder, and when Hannibal leans forward even closer, the ghost of his breath threading through his curls after a quiet draw-in, he suddenly stills. 

Did Hannibal just- 

He whips around to face the man. “You just _smelled_ me, Hannibal. This again?” He states incredulously, the clear question lingering. Their proximity forces him to meet Hannibal’s eyes. 

Something he sees in it makes him bristle further. Hannibal’s expression maintains it’s usual neutral, careful tone, but something in it gives Will pause. He feels himself suddenly in overdrive as his instincts prickle at his skin, and he forces it down, tries to uncloud himself to _think_. He takes the glass from the outstretched hand before him. Slowly puts the glass to his lips without breaking his gaze from Hannibal, affecting an appreciative smile as he does so. The man in turn drops his eyes to regard his lips briefly, but long enough to notice -open for Will’s scrutiny then- and back up. Hannibal’s senses are keenly attuned to the audible sound of the movement of Will's throat as he swallows. 

It’s the coldness, Will realizes. In his eyes; clear, and ice-focused, the intense fixation of a predator. Little guess as to who it’s trained on, as he is the only one in the room, he muses to himself humorlessly. And it hits Will with certainty.

Hannibal _knows_. He knows about Freddie Lounds. 

The older man gives him a wide smile, one usually saved for the pride he took in him and Will forces himself not to get swayed by it. Hannibal can take pride in his mind, in him even and still want him dead.

“I find it interesting that,” Hannibal pauses, letting his eyelids flutter downwards as he moves the glass closer to his nose and swirls it before taking a soft whiff, looking back at Will. 

“Though I am usually a strong advocate for this particular brand, something about consuming red today now seems dissatisfying. Don’t you agree, Will?”

Will is suddenly breathing faster, and he forces himself to break away from those pinning eyes, to look everywhere for something, _anything_ , his instincts completely alight. 

He hears the quick, determined footsteps behind him fading too fast, as Hannibal strides to his desk, the sound of liquid hitting the ground as it trails closer, and he makes a dive for the first thing he can find- the fire-iron. 

  
\---

There is blood. There is blood everywhere, or maybe it is all he sees because the side of his head continues to pulse it out more generously than he would like, as if it isn’t very _finite_. It pools over his face and clouds most of his sight. He swipes his sleeves over his face, his slowing vision catching the bloodied form of Hannibal who is panting, broad chest undulating in short bursts. He seems no closer to truly slowing down though, his hand holding the scalpel still brimming minutely with potential energy.

Will takes quick, broken huffs and wonders if he is breathing in tandem with Hannibal, as he looks at him intently. Their fight so far had left them both leading a violent dance without quite breaking. Hannibal’s face is tight, unreadable and almost without movement except for his exhalation, though his eyes remain alight and almost amused.

A small shard of the wine bottle slides down slickly from his downturned curls and lands on the floor with a small click.

“What am I to do with you, Will?” Hannibal says lowly, almost rhetorical. Will grimaces, unsure whether to be amused or angered by the question. 

“You’ll do whatever suits you, as you always see fit to.” He replies anyway, settling somewhere between as he bares his teeth.

Hannibal offers a small smile at that. “I always try to do what is in your best interest, Will. We are more attuned than you sometimes like to admit.” He states. He lifts his right hand with the scalpel to press against the wound Will had inflicted moments before. 

"I know what you believe you want and I can assure you that I wish to give you what you innately desire, if only you would allow yourself to see."

At his words, Will moves with menacing agility, suddenly crowding him, the fire-iron pressed firmly at his throat as he is pushed harshly, his back slamming against the wall of his study room. His arms fall by his sides, the blade resting loosely in his hand.

He smiles down at the younger man, all sharp teeth as Will growls in his pious anger.

“And what exactly Hannibal, do I truly _desire_ , hm?” His beloved grits through tense jaws, and he thinks he has never seen something more beautiful, more reverent in anger. His face softens minutely, and Will notices the shift and scoffs, driving the fire-iron further against his throat with the back of his elbow while his other hand grips the handle on the other side of his head. He was not going to let Hannibal enjoy this.

“You believe that I must kill you. And subsequently, you believe that it is my impending design. You would rather resign yourself to a fate that you have created than allow the chance to become your true self. I had faith in you, Will.”

Will doesn’t miss the lilt that comes with the past tense Hannibal uses to end his statement, and it distracts him to think that it rings like genuine devastation brought on by the betrayal Hannibal might be feeling. He allows it to settle within him for once, exploring the first thing he feels in turn. It cuts him in the gut like a slow saw of guilt.

His eyes snap back up to Hannibal’s as he feels ghost touches of his palm tracing over the air on his cheekbones. He stills, aborting the immediate pull that tries to draw him into the warmth of his hand.

“Your proclivities for lacking a stronger sense of self-preservation is something we truly should work on. I can still teach you.” Hannibal says hoarsely, and suddenly there is a searing burn on his lower abdomen, the sound of a slash belatedly ringing in his ears. Will releases the arm pressing the fire-iron against his throat, and stumbles back a step, hissing and it is all Hannibal needs.

He pushes Will further back by shoving into his chest and stretches in his predatory glory, giving his muscles momentary reprieve before swiftly moving, grabbing the younger man by his throat and slamming him into the ground. He follows down, kneels over Will immediately, his splayed hand on the floor partially buried by loose, matted curls. Will feels the air leave him completely at the impact, and makes purchase to scramble at the throat hovering above him. Before Hannibal can grab onto his hands to incapacitate him, Will grabs at the fire iron discarded by his thigh, jabbing it handle-first into his ribs. Hannibal topples down and he makes quick work of reversing their positions, straddling him and grabbing both of his hands, pushing them with unrestrained strength over his head, Hannibal’s wrists in a tight hold in his hand.

Hannibal immediately relaxes, his entire body easing beneath him in a fluid moment, down to his fingers as they spread out of their fisted position. Will cannot conceal the surprise he feels at the immediate surrender, and he knows that Hannibal sees it too, his lips splitting in a small grin as they gather air fast.

"I know better than to imagine you'd be so easy to overpower. You're not the kind to contemplate something so suicidal." He hisses, pushing himself lower until his curls hang around his face.

"Do you think I cannot kill you?"

"I know better than to underestimate the capabilities of your particular brand of retribution. When the time does come, I can assure you that I will welcome your hands, and the intimacy of your forgiveness just as much as I welcome every other part of you, Will."

Will tries to force himself not to roll his eyes at that. "You imply that we will have another day, but I feel that today is as good a day as any for a reckoning. You would do well to make use of your _proclivity for self-preservation_ , because I would prefer not to make a mere slaughter of you."

At this, whatever remains of Hannibal's grin falls, and his gaze is immediately overwhelming for Will. There is suddenly too much for him to see.

"I'm not going to kill you, Will. Though I know that you believe it is what you want me to do, what I should do. Why do you provoke me to break you now and yet strain with every intent to have me closer."

Will opens his mouth to answer but finds nothing. He realizes that he wants to believe him, and maybe in this moment Hannibal is telling the truth. He was never one to make such clear, false declarations, and when he wanted to hide the truth he merely chose to make it malleable enough to slip through Will's fingers until it was too late in its revelation. 

He doesn't realize he had been holding his breath until the absurdity of it all punches a throaty laugh out of him void of any humor. It leaves him soon gasping. He shakes his head.

Of course they could only be as honest with each other like this, marked by wounds with one of them well subdued.

"I find it curious that in all your musings, you never asked if Achilles could survive separation. Can we survive?" Will rasps, his breathing coming down hot as he leans further down, trailing a sharp caress of air against the bareness of Hannibal's throat. 

He watches the thumping of the jugular vein in Hannibal’s throat, the farce of vulnerability beating like keys to the pieces of Will's song, an inevitable crescendo drawing him into the peak of his own tragic play. He wants to sink his teeth in and tear. He wants to sink his teeth and bruise and then heal, reverently. The juxtaposition of his feelings is not beyond him, no matter how far down he pushes it.

And yet they are both true. 

Love and violence, a language married; a tongue spoken so well by them both, the tablets their skin marked by biting words and bruises and blood. But an ever growing part of Will wants to soften the inscriptions. And that is the really terrifying problem placed in his hands.

He bares his teeth, and tears his eyes down to Hannibal's chest, huffing. The blood from the gash above his temple drips leisurely now, against the collar of Hannibal’s soft blue buttoned shirt. He stares on for a long moment, transfixed. 

Will raises his head up to find desire the color of blood on a full moon dancing in Hannibal's eyes as they roam his face. He wonders how much left of himself is unmirrored by the man beneath him.

"I don't know." 

" _Don't_. Don't lie to me, Hannibal." 

"Truly, Will. I do not know."

He can see the confusion flit across Hannibal's face, quick as lightning. His discomfort at the level of this admission, the uncertainty and vulnerability seeming too much for a man who only knew the opposite from the inside out. The person suit Hannibal wears has never had to adjust its fit to allow these feelings space, the monster within even less so, Will reckons.

Somehow he finds himself pitying Hannibal for a moment. Afterall, uncertainty and vulnerability had always been a well known wear for him, a suit too tight, never removed. Will takes his free hand and covers Hannibal's throat, pressing, then releases his wrists, to bring his other hand to Hannibal's neck with added, crushing pressure. 

Hannibal lets him. 

“You have taken so much. You’ve taken everything that has dared to surround me since I’ve met you. Drawn me in to make yourself the sole presence orbiting me, obliterating everything else in my path. You took what could have been ours together- even that could not pacify you. So if today is not the day of reckoning, where does that leave us? I don't-”

“I don't know how to forgive you, Hannibal.” Will’s voice breaks through the words.

“But you want to try. Even if this...” Hannibal emphasizes by stretching his neck back, more open. “Is the only way.” He manages hoarsely. Will eases his hands by a fraction.

“Yes.” 

Hannibal nods. He watches as agony finally finds its place out of hiding to settle all over Will. It is in his eyes, darkened by determination and hesitance, he feels it all as it pulses within the fingers that ease and clamp dangerously against his skin with each breath that Will takes.

“I am not a man keen on circling within the throes of regret but I can sincerely tell you this. If I had the foresight to understand even a sliver of how much you would come to mean to me, I would do this all differently. I take pride in the man you are as a symptom of how far we have come, but with the cost we have paid,” He stops to force a breath in.

“I’ve come to realise that there are...alternative ways to achieve these feats without hurting you. Without hurting and betraying each other. But I already cast the die, and I will accept the results as long as it comes from you alone.”

The implication rings clear. No FBI, no Uncle Jack. Just him and Hannibal wielding the hand of God, whether in judgment or in frayed peace. It needed to be personal.

Intimate.

“Isn't it too late for that?” Will tries for impertinence, but it comes out hopeful, questioning.

“If you allow it not to be, I will be more than amenable to being indebted to your pardoning until my last breath. Even in this moment I seek against my unadulterated instinct to forgive you and in turn await your forgiveness, however long it takes. All you need do is let me have the privilege of showing you."

He raises his hand up to Will’s face to give the lightest touch. Will allows himself to lean in this time when his warm palm hovers over his cheek and sighs as his eyes meet fiery-amber ones. Will finds soft surprise, then acceptance and reverence in them even as he applies more pressure to Hannibal’s throat.

"Will…" He mouths, because to speak isn't much of an option anymore. It is not pleading or goading. It's just his name on Hannibal’s lips, encompassing so much in such a small word. And it breaks everything in Will suddenly, realizing that Hannibal really would let him just take what was most important to him, if it meant Will found himself. 

He releases his hands from Hannibal with frightening speed, his breath coming in harsh and quick as he watches the man beneath him struggle back to replenish his lungs, his eyes never leaving him.

Hannibal gives a small smile.

"Will." He manages. 

And somehow, for today it is enough, Will thinks.

Will moves down, and Hannibal’s vision swims full of him; his hair even more cherubic when covered in blood, his pale bare throat, the stretch of Will's arm extending over his head to find balance behind him on the floor. 

He finds himself suddenly out of breath as Will takes it from him, not for the first time today, though the means is a first. Hannibal stills in surprise as Will’s lips press down hard on him, seeking and without patience, and cannot suppress the small groan of pleasure that escapes him when Will tugs at his bottom lip, teeth digging promisingly. 

" _Hannibal_." Will ghosts softly over his lips, with eyes blown wide, electric in its intensity. Hannibal thinks of lightning, of all the gods that have commanded the sky.

"I'm giving you the privilege...so _show me_."

Hannibal feels his breath leave him again. It sounds like another path to forgiveness that he hadn't dared to linger on, another thread that fate has found pity to grant him. He sees the jagged edges, the tendrils jutting out from the chord; weak unwalked parts, incongruous possibilities that could easily break the gift they have been given.

He does not think he deserves it, but Hannibal is nothing but adaptive especially with the most desirous outcome at hand.

He pushes past the pain in his ribs onto an elbow, bringing his other hand to nestle at the back of Will's head as he pulls him closer. He watches as Will closes his eyes, allowing the sensation of Hannibal's thumb against the side of his face to placate him before he opens them again to look at him.

"I intend to." Hannibal says simply, pulling Will down into a searing kiss. He feels Will take the reins almost immediately, pushing him back down. Will's tongue as it darts out just under his upper lip, teasing with intent. He parts his lips to welcome his beloved's offer.

Who was he to deny himself the mercy of his God after all?

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading <3


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